1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to containers used in the transportation and storage of horticultural or agricultural goods and more specifically to a dual configuration shipping and display container for bedding plants and other nursery stock.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
The distribution path of bedding plants, small woody plants, potted plants, and other nursery stock begins at the grower. When the "flats" of plants are ready for sale, they are usually loaded onto large metal racks which are then placed into trucks and transported to garden supply stores or other retail outlets. Once at the retail outlet, the plants are usually unloaded from the truck and put on display in the same racks in which they were shipped. Occasionally, however, the plants may also be unloaded from the shipping racks and placed onto separate display racks for display and sale. The retailer may also provide separate customer carry-out containers to aid the customers in carrying home their selected flats of plants. Therefore, up to three separate transportation containers, be they shipping or display racks or customer carry-out containers, may be used to facilitate transport or display of the plants at various times, increasing the overall cost of the plants.
Over the years, various types and configurations of paperboard or corrugated paperboard shipping containers have been developed in attempts to reduce the reliance on expensive and inconvenient metal shipping and display racks. Examples of such paperboard shipping containers for plants are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,379,304, issued Apr. 23, 1968 to Mertz; U.S. Pat. No. 3,606,004, issued Sept. 20, 1971 to Fruehwirth; U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,301, issued Oct. 9, 1979 to Jones et al ; and, U.S. Pat. No. 4,330,059, issued May 18, 1982 to Freeman.
Unfortunately, these paperboard containers have not proven to be a panacea, and there remain a number of problems with such paperboard shipping containers. For example, such containers typically designed only for shipping nursery stock from the grower to the retailer, and are not well-suited for display or eventual customer carry-out of the plants. Such containers are little more than fully enclosed cardboard boxes, and are relatively dark, cramped, and provide little air circulation into or around the nursery stock or plants being shipped therein, which can cause wilting or other damage to the plants. Another disadvantage associated with such prior art paperboard shipping containers is that they are usually relatively difficult, thus expensive, to assemble and often require staples, glue, or tape to help hold them together. Still other containers, such as the container disclosed in the Mertz patent, require special jigs or forms for assembly.
Despite the development of these seemingly convenient paperboard shipping containers, it is still common to ship the plants contained within such containers in metal racks, because the paperboard containers are usually not strong enough to allow several containers to be directly stacked on top of one another. As mentioned above, besides being costly, these shipping racks are cumbersome and must be "dead headed" or returned empty to the grower before they can be used again, which results in substantial return shipping costs.
Therefore, there remains a need to provide a shipping container for flats of nursery plants and the like that provides a suitable environment for the plants during shipping and which can be easily stacked for shipment on trucks without requiring the expensive and cumbersome metal shipping racks. Moreover, such a container should be suitable for displaying the plants at the retail outlet to completely eliminate the need for expensive and cumbersome shipping or display racks. Ideally, such a container also should be readily and easily convertible into a customer carry-out container, thereby eliminating the need for the retailer to supply separate customer carry-out containers. Until the present invention, no such container existed.